


Happy Returns

by LadyNighteyes



Category: Radiant Historia
Genre: Community: fic_promptly, Grief/Mourning, Pre-Canon, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-26 17:16:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1696151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyNighteyes/pseuds/LadyNighteyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt: "<a href="http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/222894.html?thread=9150894#cmt9150894">Radiant Historia, Eruca, every year she celebrates her brother's birthday in secret</a>." As is practically required for Eruca fic, spoilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy Returns

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Quicksilver_ink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quicksilver_ink/gifts).



It was cold out, unsurprisingly. Eruca winced, pulling her cloak tighter to shut out the late-January wind. It was probably for the best, of course; on the off-chance Protea realized she was gone, it was less likely that anyone sent to look for her would search outside. No one had noticed last year or the one before, but the possibility was always there.

Her footsteps crunched on the gravel walkway as she followed it past empty flowerbeds and leafless ornamental trees, then quieted when she stepped off the path onto the dried-up grass. She picked her way carefully between dormant shrubs, the thorns of a rosebush catching at her cloak for a moment as she passed. When she reached the hedge she glanced around quickly, then ducked down and crawled as best she could through a gap between two of the small evergreens. She straightened up on the other side and checked to make sure she hadn't dropped anything- it got harder to squeeze through there every year, and having to keep one hand clutched to her chest didn't help. Still, it was the easiest way into the kitchen gardens she knew that didn't go through the castle.

There wasn't much growing here, this time of year. A few small rosemary bushes were the only splashes of green, though she knew the cooks had taken some other potted herbs indoors for the winter. It was good for her; they mostly blocked the kitchen windows, so if she was ever caught coming here, the cooks could deny they'd ever seen her. Though if Protea was in a particularly bad mood, that still wouldn't be enough to save them.

Her destination was a gap formed between a corner of the castle wall and the side of a storage shed. It was narrow and hard to see, particularly since a large, flourishing grapevine grew beside the entrance, even spreading onto the shed so she had to duck to get through. She wouldn't have known it was there at all if her brother hadn't pointed it out to her years ago- there had been a ladder stashed there, then, and he'd shown her how you could climb up onto the roof of the shed, run across, jump a little ways to the kitchen roof, and find a set of handholds someone had chiseled into the outer wall that let you get out without being seen. That wasn't really an option now- the tree on the outside that was the easiest way down the other side of the wall had been cut down in one of Victor's fits of paranoia. But the little alley still remained, unnoticed by most of the castle.

"I'm sorry I didn't come yesterday," she said, aloud. "I hope you don't mind me being a day late." Carefully, she set the flowers she'd been carrying- a little battered from her trip through the hedge, but none the worse for wear- down against the pile of stones at the end of the alley. They were marigolds; she would have preferred something else, but that was all she'd been able to find down in the city. With the food shortages, few people bothered raising _flowers_ in greenhouses these days.

Eruca hadn't really known what a memorial should look like when she made it. She had known, though, that it couldn't afford to be found. While there probably wasn't a single person in the city who believed it, her brother had been labeled a traitor. Eruca knew her stepmother regularly had the guards search her bedroom, so even a picture of him was out of the question. (She supposed she should be glad there were even any _left_ \- by contrast, her father had done such a good job of eliminating any trace of her uncle that she had no idea what he'd even looked like.) So she'd done what she could, which wasn't much: a small stone cairn in a dark corner, with a few shards of a broken mirror for decoration. Even at thirteen, she'd been struck by the irony that the best a princess could manage was something so crude.

"I know you're probably disappointed in me," she said. "I promised you last time that I'd do something about all the hospital closings, but Mother wouldn't listen. I couldn't stop it."

She didn't know if he could hear her. None of the books she'd read to try to understand what had happened had been able to tell her for sure where a sacrifice's consciousness went, whether the way their soul still lingered tied them to the world or if they became nothing more than energy and whoever they were before was erased. She hoped it was the former.

"I've been working with Pierre and Will and the others," Eruca said. "And we- we've been doing what we can, but it's never enough."

She'd almost said it aloud: that they had managed to smuggle several people falsely accused of treason out of the city before Protea's guards could arrest them. But no matter how sure she was that no one was nearby, things like that were never safe to say in the castle. It galled, but the only reason she was still alive was that Protea thought she was harmless. She couldn't afford to die, not with the fate of the continent hanging on her bloodline.

"I'm sorry. After you gave your life to give us a few more years, I don't even know how to use them..."

She realized she was shivering, the cold having wormed its way through her cloak.

"I'll stop by again soon," she said, "I promise. I'll... try to tell you more then." She turned away from the cairn and its offering of flowers.

"Happy birthday, Ernst," she whispered to the empty air.

**Author's Note:**

> Quicksilver_ink [filled one of my RH prompts](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1617293), so I filled one of hers. Only seemed fair. ;;;)))


End file.
